A vision of Mary

By INEZ RUSSELL | The New Mexican
August 28, 2005

Finally, Alonzo Lopez gave in. His wife, Angela, had been asking and asking for a different kind of vacation. Not one for fun, necessarily, but a vacation dedicated to prayer and pilgrimage. She wanted to visit Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia, to see the place where many believe the Virgin Mary has been appearing since 1981.

“She had to twist my arm to go on this trip,” he said.

Twist she did, and last spring, the Santa Fe couple — both retired educators — made their pilgrimage. They returned with a story to tell of faith renewed and visions seen.

On a bus to their destination, the couple and 13 other pilgrims were praying. The view out the window of the bus was breathtaking; sea and sky splashed against rugged mountains. A Midwestern pilgrim snapped a picture.

“All of us were praying and singing. She was too, but she took out her digital camera and about a moment later, she took out the camera and said, ‘Look at what I have here.’ It was the Virgin Mary,” Alonzo said, adding that he saw stars in the camera, which pulsated, and then vanished.

“I know there are going to be people who are skeptics,” he said. “But I know in my heart what I saw.” What they and the other pilgrims saw — and have preserved in the photograph — was a light-shaped image in the same shape as the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The light, to the Lopezes, shone a blessing on their trip and their encounter with the divine.

“My faith,” said Alonzo, “is a lot stronger.”

To Angela, it was like “she was saying, ‘Bienvenidos. Welcome to Medjugorje.’ ”

Renewed by their days of prayer, the Lopezes returned to Santa Fe determined to tell everyone what they saw, and to share the messages that the Blessed Mother who appears in Medjugorje has taken to the world since children started seeing her almost 25 years ago.

As part of their pilgrimage, they felt fortunate to have a private audience with one of the now-grown men who first started seeing the Virgin as a child.

“We were kneeling next to him,” Alonzo said. “He was looking up to Our Lady and we were right there. He smiles and moves his mouth.”

The pilgrims asked for the vision’s message.

It’s a simple message, really.

“She said she loves us all and would like to hug and kiss all of us,” Alonzo said. “Her main message that day was, ‘dear children, bring prayer back to your families and to my son Jesus.’ ”

For Angela, making the trip was a culmination of a lifetime of devotion to the Blessed Mother. The daughter of former Santa Fe Mayor Frank S. Ortiz, she was very sick when she was younger. Her father went to Mexico City and lit a candle for her health at the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day of Dec. 12.

“I had dysentery,” she said, perhaps from the fresh milk that families drank then. “Nothing would help. My mother went to the doctor and he prescribed penicillin. But my dad’s lighting that candle, that’s what turned it around.”

Her faith grew so strong that after high school, Angela went to Holman, N.M., outside Mora, to enter a convent and become a nun.

She went to Connecticut to continue her studies and again became severely ill. She came home to recover, and started getting better on Dec. 12, a recovery she credits to the Virgin.

Instead of becoming a nun, Angela turned to teaching, marriage and raising her two children. But she never lost her love for Mary.

“I have a great devotion to her,” she said.

Her husband, Alonzo, built a shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe in the backyard of the couple’s north-side home for his wife. But he wasn’t keen on taking a pilgrimage.

He listened to his wife, and both Lopezes are glad he did. Alonzo has spent much of his adult life battling heart problems — two heart attacks, two heart stents and major bypass surgery.

“It’s a miracle I’m still around,” he said. “I strongly believe God is using Angela and me to spread the message to the world what we experienced.”

Visiting Medjugorje, Angela said, is a preview to Heaven.

“There’s so much love there,” she said. “That’s what Heaven must be like.”

About Medjugorje

For more than 20 years now, the faithful hold strong to the belief that the Virgin Mary has been appearing in Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia.

Now part of Bosnia-Hercegovina, she is thought to have begun appearing to six children since June 24, 1981, according to the Web site http://www.medjugorje.org. Some of those children still see their vision, even today, almost 25 years later.

The children’s visions became worldwide news, attracting pilgrims and the curious, and bringing people to the site — even before the fall of communism. Today thousands of people visit Medjugorje each year, including the Lopezes of Santa Fe.

The visionaries — six children, now all grown — all say the woman they saw carried a universal message.

Peace was the first and most important of her messages, said the children, adding that she wanted peace among men and between God and men. She asked for her people to be faithful and to pray “without ceasing.” She stressed conversion as a means to peace.

Additionally, the children said the Virgin Mary asked people to fast as a way to deepen their faith.

According to the Web site: “Our Lady’s messages underline that peace is the greatest good, and that faith, conversion, prayer and fasting are the means by which we can attain it.”


Other sightings of Mary

• 1531 — Mexico City. Juan Diego was hurrying to Mass when he saw the Virgin Mary, who asked him to persuade the bishop to build a chapel at the spot where she appeared. The bishop didn’t believe Diego and told him to ask Mary for a sign. She told Diego to go to a certain place and gather roses, although it was December there should be no roses in bloom. He found the roses and wrapped them in a cloak. He brought them to Mary who told him to bring them to the bishop. When Diego unwrapped the roses in front of the bishop, the cloak was glowing with an image of Mary. The cloak can be seen today at the Shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico.

• 1858 — Lourdes, France. A young girl named Bernadette Soubrious was gathering firewood with her siblings near a stream when she heard a noise from a nearby cave. According to accounts, “Lifting her head, she saw, in the crevice of the rock, a young girl, surrounded by light, who looked at her and smiled.” This was the first of 18 visions Soubrious said she had of the Virgin Mary. Soubrious said Mary asked to have a chapel built on the spot. Thousands of believers, many in wheelchairs or even rolled in on gurneys, still visit the cave and drink the water from the spring, hoping for a miracle.

• 1917 — Fatima, Portugal. Mary appeared six times to three children — Lucia dos Santos, Francisco Marto and Jacinto Marto. Mary’s appearance at Fatima was witnessed by thousands and, at one point, a massive crowd claimed to witness impossible movements of the sun. Mary promised peace to the war-torn world if her requests for prayer were granted. Her final message was said to be so earth-shattering it has been kept secret by the Vatican since.

• 1981 — Medjugorje, in the former Yugoslavia. Mary appears to six children, who still live near the site of the vision and open their homes to pilgrims.

• 1990 — Conyers, Georgia. Nancy Fowler, a middle-aged housewife and mother, said she was visited at her farmhouse by Mary who wanted to give a message to the United States. According to Fowler, who was the only person able to see the Virgin, Mary appeared as a light on the wall. Mary appeared 49 times in eight years, until the final vision in 1998. More than a million people visited the site during that time.

Source: http://www.catholic-forum.com, http://www.marypages.com